Peanut Butter & Jam Dark Chocolate Cups

Since sharing a detailed pictorial on making homemade almond butter and raspberry chocolate cups last year, I've received several requests for a similar but less labour-intensive recipe for producing these decadent and relatively healthy treats.

After going more than 20 years without a microwave, we recently purchased a small, low-power microwave made in Korea, and I thought I could simplify this recipe by using our microwave to melt the chocolate rather than using the oft-used double boiler method

Ingredients:

200 grams (about 7 ounces) of dark chocolate chips
3 tablespoons of smooth organic peanut butter or almond butter if you prefer
Organic strawberry jam

Directions:

1. Melt about half of your chocolate chips in a heat-safe glass bowl or jar in a microwave oven. Using our low power microwave, this took about a minute, though the melted chips required gentle stirring to become smooth liquid chocolate. When working with chocolate, it's always important to be mindful about not using any more heat than you need to melt the chocolate, and avoid having steam and water droplets mix in with your chocolate, which will cause your chocolate to harden and take on a grainy texture.

2. Line a cupcake/muffin tray with six liners, and place one tablespoon of melted chocolate in each liner. Gently swirl the convex surface of your tablespoon to create space for the nut butter and strawberry jam filling - as you swirl, you can gently push the chocolate up the sides of the liner to create the sides of your chocolate cups, or if you're pressed for time, it's fine to leave your bottom layer of chocolate as an level layer. Transfer your tray of chocolate-lined cupcake liners into the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes to harden.

3. Take your dark chocolate cups out of the freezer and fill each with one tablespoon of nut butter filling, gently spreading it evenly within each cup.

4. Add about a teaspoon of your strawberry jam filling on top of the nut butter filling, and gently spread it evenly.

5. Melt the second half of your chocolate chips and put enough on top of each cup to cover the but butter and jam filling - it will be about one flat tablespoon of melted chocolate per cup.

6. Place your completed cups in the freezer for 30 minutes to set. They can be devoured at this point with a soft filling, or kept in the freezer in an air-tight container until needed - just let them thaw for 30 minutes or so before enjoying. After 24 hours of being in the freezer, if they still exist, keep them in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

To view my original pictorial for dark chocolate almond butter raspberry cups, please feel free to go here:

Dark Chocolate, Almond Butter, and Raspberry Cups